Book on communal violence in Kandhamal: The law must change course
The tragedy of Kandhamal is that the attack on the Christian community in August 2008 was familiar and the subsequent failure of the legal system to accord justice to the victim-survivors predictable. This book critically examines the patterns of impunity as they unfold in Kandhamal. There is today a vibrant debate seeking legal reform to ensure accountability for mass crimes by extending culpability to those who sponsor and profit from the carnage.
Despite warning signals that concerted communal mobilization was underway for almost two decades in Orissa, no preventive measures were taken to secure life and property. Perhaps governance was guided by lessons learnt from India’s contemporary history - one of which appears to be that communal killings are expected to pay rich electoral dividends. The failure of the criminal justice system to punish those who planned the killing and destruction in Kandhamal has left a deep sense of injustice and discrimination. The state’s failure to provide adequate reparation to the victim-survivors and their cruel abandonment has deepened this alienation.
The Nellie massacre of 1983; the anti Sikh pogroms of 1984; the Bhagalpur riots of 1989; the anti Muslim violence in Mumbai in 1992; the genocidal attack on the Muslims of Gujarat in 2002; & now the Kandhamal attack on Christians, indicates that mass crimes committed with overt or covert State sanction, pose a grave challenge to the secular, pluralist idea of India.
This book critically examines the pattern of impunity as it continues to unfold in Kandhamal. Civil society in India urgently requires to debate legal reforms on accountability for mass crimes. The claim to ‘civilisation’ by any society is dependent above all, on the degree to which it ensures the dignity of its citizens, and their equality in the eyes of the law. That is why it is essential to extend culpability to those who sponsor and profit from such acts. This publication seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter this pattern of continuing injustice and rampant impunity. It is rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace.
Despite warning signals that concerted communal mobilization was underway for almost two decades in Orissa, no preventive measures were taken to secure life and property. Perhaps governance was guided by lessons learnt from India’s contemporary history - one of which appears to be that communal killings are expected to pay rich electoral dividends. The failure of the criminal justice system to punish those who planned the killing and destruction in Kandhamal has left a deep sense of injustice and discrimination. The state’s failure to provide adequate reparation to the victim-survivors and their cruel abandonment has deepened this alienation.
The Nellie massacre of 1983; the anti Sikh pogroms of 1984; the Bhagalpur riots of 1989; the anti Muslim violence in Mumbai in 1992; the genocidal attack on the Muslims of Gujarat in 2002; & now the Kandhamal attack on Christians, indicates that mass crimes committed with overt or covert State sanction, pose a grave challenge to the secular, pluralist idea of India.
This book critically examines the pattern of impunity as it continues to unfold in Kandhamal. Civil society in India urgently requires to debate legal reforms on accountability for mass crimes. The claim to ‘civilisation’ by any society is dependent above all, on the degree to which it ensures the dignity of its citizens, and their equality in the eyes of the law. That is why it is essential to extend culpability to those who sponsor and profit from such acts. This publication seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter this pattern of continuing injustice and rampant impunity. It is rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace.
